


We Radiate

by sirenalley



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-14
Updated: 2012-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-31 04:02:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/339672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirenalley/pseuds/sirenalley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>District 12 is gone forever. They’ll never be home again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Radiate

Heat radiates in the air. Gale swears he can see it shimmer, long lines of gold under a white-faced moon, but he knows it’s just an illusion. Desperation and adrenaline playing tricks on the eyes; it happens when you’re running for your life.   
  
And it’s getting harder to breathe.   
  
Smoke chokes the air, flames brighter and higher and redder than ever, a now-distant village swallowed, eating half the horizon. Gale is the first one into the meadow because he’s the leader of this meager group of survivors; he’s pushing ahead, shouting over every thundering blast of a bomb. There’s several at once, then nothing, than a cluster again, then nothing, then only those licking, crackling flames. He knows it’s important to get _out_ and _away_ and leave nothing to luck, but he can’t help it, dwelling at that last second. None of them can.  
  
On the boundary of the meadow, they all stop to look, not just Gale Hawthorne. Posy snatches his hand and Hazelle begins to cry, though her sobs drown in the loud chaos of everything else.  
  
District 12 is gone forever. They’ll never be home again.  
  
“Go on,” he tells his mother and his sister, a numbness sinking down into the pit of his stomach. He has no way to channel this, no way to console himself, and he knows the rest of them feel the same. “Go on! Keep going. _Don’t look back_.”  
  
Somehow, perhaps because Gale possesses the voice of a leader and a soldier and they’re spellbound enough to follow, Gale is the the last one standing in the meadow. He looks across the field of his vision, lips parted, tongue dry as paper, trying to make sense of the moment.  
  
Quick planes dart across the sky one final time, spewing explosives. Then the Capitol leaves the dead District alone, retrieving its pilots desensitized or else uncaring at what they’ve done.  
  
Gale realizes this final injustice is the beginning of the end, and he knows the path he’ll take from here; he knows it as certain as his steps take him away from home, deeper into the shadows of the woods. He knows he’ll never forgive the people who have done this.  
  
The procession takes them further, and Gale looks back, can’t help it. The fire is still smoldering, the sky is gray and sick, and he watches a string of black birds beat their wings in escape above the trees.  
  
Time liquidates and Gale stands still. He thinks of all the people he hasn’t been able to save, blown apart and lost in a flurry of humidity, characteristics of their own village come back to haunt them to their grave. He thinks of all the people he’ll never see again. He doesn’t know who they are yet, may never know, but they’ll be somewhere between his heart and head – a heavy pressure of guilt, immortalized.  
  
A twig snaps, Gale’s head whipping to the side. He’s armed to the teeth with all the rage and vehemence he can offer, but it’s not a threat he finds. Looming between the trees is a frail figure, white and ghostly, running away from him. Convinced it’s another survivor, Gale’s boots pound the earth in pursuit.  
  
“Hey! Hey, this way!”  
  
No matter how fast he chases, he never catches up, and soon he’s left the group behind. Dawn breaks above him, but the sun doesn’t penetrate the choking thickness of tragedy in these woods. Gale stops to catch his breath and sobs dryly, no wetness of tears in his red, irritated eyes.   
  
The figure looms back into view, at his peripheral, and Gale straightens, chest heaving hard with each gasp of air. It’s silhouetted by gold – that same heat from the fire – or not, he notices, too late. Gold curls, a white dress, white skin, bare feet blackened by the tough dirt.  
  
Madge Undersee melts into ash before his eyes, gone in a gust of hot wind, never there to start.  
  
Gale feels brittle everywhere, dashing forward to grasp at something white and gold to keep with him – but it doesn’t matter, because Madge isn’t there. She’s miles back, under broken and burning beams, lost to the night of violence. He didn’t save her. He never had a chance.  
  
Desperation, adrenaline playing tricks on the eyes.   
  
“Gale!”  
  
It’s his mother’s voice, calling him back, and then others join. His siblings. He mashes the heels of his palms over his eyes as if the purge the image, but it won’t leave. There’s no time to cry. The woods echo with enough of it already, the voices of birds and squirrels and rabbits, running and running, trying to find spots of safety.  
  
He runs back, too, and Hazelle is there to wrap her arms around him, but Gale breaks free. “This way,” he shouts above the broken silence, the crying, “this way. We have to go this way.”  
  
And he leads them.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Taylor Swift's Safe & Sound music video. Title from Goldfrapp.


End file.
